


Maybe We're Crazy (Probably)

by setos_puppy



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Always Male Harley, Genderbending, M/M, Rule 63, written pre-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 13:39:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8104465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/setos_puppy/pseuds/setos_puppy
Summary: Quinn Harleson works for Indian Hill, and it's time to bring Jerome back into play.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [apinchofcyanide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/apinchofcyanide/gifts).



> Alright, I don't even know what this is, the idea got into my head after re-watching Law and Order: SVU and seeing Noel Fisher's character on there. So Quinn is basically Noel Fisher because I am Gallovich trash. So, uh, you're welcome.

Swiping his card, Quinn pushed through the turnstile leading deeper into the unassuming building just blocks from Gotham City Hall. To the outside observer he looked like any other intern on their way to work. Dressed in neatly pressed business casual wear and a messenger bag. White blonde hair brushed back in a messy, chic cowlick that he secured in place with his sunglasses, pushing them up to showcase his icy blue eyes. However, he was more than just a mid-twenties nameless intern. He was Dr. Quinn Harleson, psychological resident working for Indian Hill.

Removing his sunglasses from his head, he paused momentarily to slip them into his bag before turning down a corner past the elevator banks and pressed the door leading to the stairwell open. Heading down the flights of stairs, he pulled off his headphones, turning off his music and pushed the device into his messenger bag as he swung his lanyard around his neck once he reached the bottom of the stairs. He headed through the door and around a few corners before walking into a records office and moved into the shelving. Getting to a row of compact shelving, he turned the knob, slipping between the shelf and the wall once enough space was made and ducked into a narrow doorway. Placing his hand into the biometric scanner and entering his code, he smiled as the sleek wall slid aside for the elevator and stepped in, pressing the button to close the door, not needing to select his destination.

When the parent company for Indian Hill had taken him on for his residency for Arkham, he’d been thrilled, when Hugo Strange had botched the operation and they’d needed to transfer across the city to the new facility, it had been more than a bit of a headache. Especially when Subject 13 had gotten loose and sprung a few of their experiments. Thankfully, they had more than a few backup plans. 

When the elevator slowed and the doors whooshed open, Quinn found himself face to face with a woman in her early-to-mid forties, blonde hair with a few grey streaks in it pulled back from her face in a high bun. She smiled warmly at him, stepping back and holding out a lab coat for him to take and pull on, which he did after pulling his messenger bag off. 

“Good morning, Dr. Harleson.”

“Good morning, Dr. Jace. Thanks for texting me, I’m excited to see our progress.”

She nodded her head and turned on her heel, Quinn followed her wordlessly, they paused only momentarily for him to place his bag at his desk, and then swept through the largely windowed hallways into the depths of the laboratory. 

“There hasn’t been much, he’s only just arrived out of cold storage. We have plans to inject him with Freeze’s formula and the formula our benefactors have shipped us. They’ve assured us that it works. They’ve had miraculous results.”

Quinn’s mouth pressed into a line at the words. Mulling over the idea. “You told them that he suffered a bullet directly to the brain, right?”

 

Helga Jace paused in her trek and turned to fix a look on Quinn. “Yes. And they’ve run mock tests with their subjects. They’ve assured me. You’re young and new, Dr. Harleson, but trust me, our benefactors would not steer us wrong.”

Nodding in acknowledgment, Quinn watched as Dr. Jace punched in her keycode and pushed open the door leading to the storage lab. He pulled his coat tighter around him as the door closed behind them in the cool, temperature controlled room and shoved his hands into his slacks, suddenly grateful for his decision to wear a sweater vest over his collared shirt. He hated being cold. 

Walking along, his eyes slid over the tubes the various subjects were held in; immersed in a gelatinous fluid. He stopped in front of one, hand reaching out to press against the tank even though he knew it would be freezing. He peered up into the clear glass and fluid to take him the grinning face, pale skin and red hair of his subject. He’d been working with Dr. Jace since his first day on Subject 17, also known as Jerome Valeska. 

“Good morning, Mr. J,” Quinn greeted, smiling up at the tank. “We’re gonna wake you up.”

He ignored the way Helga eyed him from where she was reading the output from the tank and stepped back a bit, putting his hand back into his pocket. She finished her reading and looked up at him, adjusting her glasses on her nose. “Eager, are you? He was quite the spectacle. He scored 38/40 on the Hare Checklist.”

Quinn let out a breath at the information and quirked a grin at her, looking back to the tank. “Two away from the perfect score. Five more than I score.”

Helga rolled her eyes and shook her head in a way that faintly spoke of annoy maternalism. “Yes, yes, Dr. Quinn, we were all quite surprised to see a resident score in the psychopathy zone. No need to keep flaunting it. Still, that’s why you were put on Mr. Valeska’s file, you’re to be his handler and… Confidant, I suppose, if circumstances allow.”

Quinn’s mouth fell open in shock and he sputtered. “What? I thought I was just an observer.”

Helga gave a sharp laugh at that. “No one here observes alone, this is a full participation facility, Dr. Harleson. Besides, your file highly reads as a hybristophiliac, I find it highly unlikely that we could even keep you from him if we tried.”

At that heat rose to Quinn’s cheeks and he fisted the hand that wasn’t in his pocket and stepped forward slightly. “Hey! Don’t psychoanalyze me! I don’t go waving around your test results, now do I?”

A finely arched eyebrow winged up at him and Dr. Jace tucked her clipboard against her chest, bemused. “They’re highly confidential, even if you wished to. I wasn’t chastising you. Merely making a statement. Mr. Valeska is a tool to distract Gotham from the unwarranted outbreak. You’re gasoline to that fire.”

Quinn huffed. “So I only got this job because I’m a good companion to a mass murdering psychopath? I thought my high exam scores caught your attention.”

Waving a hand, Dr. Jace set it on his shoulder and squeezed. “Both did. Just think of this as a way of broadening all of your horizons. Now come on, we need to see to the reanimation tanks as they remove Mr. Valeska from his trappings here.”

Watching as Dr. Jace turned, Quinn squinted at her back and raked a hand through his hair. He couldn’t deny the thrill that ran through him at the idea of running rampant with Jerome. It had definitely occupied more than a few passing thoughts over the year of his residency thus far. He stole a glance over his shoulder at the tank. What if Jerome rebuffed him?

 

* * *

“Alright, administering the Freeze formula now.” 

Quinn’s eyes roamed over from where the IV cannula was resting in Jerome’s arm, the drip would start once he was lowered into the bath of resuscitating formula. The nurse leaned over the tank, her hand bracing on the operating table that Jerome’s cadaver was resting on, the table swayed slightly on it’s track at the movement and she plunged the large needle containing the mix of A16 and Epinephrine into Jerome’s heart. Quinn grimaced at the action, it was an obsolete move, one movies loved to brandish, but Jerome was dead, so the risk of bleeding out was nil. Once the plunger had been fully depressed she pulled the syringe back and nodded to Dr. Jace.

Dr. Jace pressed a button on the controls and the lift holding up the operating table jiggered to life and lowered Jerome’s body into the sickly forest green tinged viscous liquid. Quinn had been told that the liquid, a sort of miracle topical solution was dubbed L4Z-R05 by their benefactors. It looked like a sludge. 

Now they just had to wait.

Once Jerome was fully submerged, Quinn started the timer.

According to their reports, the test subjects exposed to L4Z-R05 showed signs of recovery within five minutes. 

Leaning over the tank, Quinn’s eyes roamed for any signs of reaction. Bubbles. Something!

Instead there was just a smooth surface, broken by the four lines of the lift and the slightly faint outline of Jerome’s body through the slick surface. 

His eyes darted over to the timer. 

4:47.

He bit his lip and looked back at the surface of the tank. Maybe the mixture of the two cancelled out? Maybe the head wound was too complex to fix?

5:32.

Quinn looked impatiently to Dr. Jace, who shook her head faintly and he rocked on his feet, hands gripping the edge of the tank and looked in it, almost desperately. “C’mon, Mr. J.”

6:03.

Dr. Jace’s hand fidgeted over the button operating the lift. 

Suddenly the liquid sloshed violently and Jerome’s form lifted, thrashing, letting out a manic screech. 

A bright smile broke over Quinn’s face.

* * *

It had taken the better part of two hours to get Jerome’s crazed form out of the tank, under control, and hosed down. The resurrection left him slightly feral, but it ebbed away into a more controlled mania with every passing minute. He looked slightly different, his eyes had darker rings below them and his skin seemed to have retained its pale, ashen pallor. His hair, too, was different. The dark auburn was streaked through with a mossy, forest green in a single, long stripe up from the middle of Jerome’s forehead across the back of his head. 

He was also ravenous.

Hunched low around his plate, biting into an almost rare, bloody hamburger, eyes darting around, taking in the sights around him. His first inquiry had been where Theo Galavan was, wanting to put a bullet in his brain. After being told Galavan was dead, he pouted for the better part of half an hour before draping himself into the nearest chair and declared he was starving and wasn’t doing anything more until he ate.

That was four hamburgers ago.

Quinn sat opposite him at the table, chin in his hands, fingers cradling his face and watching him with utter rapture. Enthralled. 

As much as he fought against what Dr. Jace had said earlier, about his hybristophilia, he was doomed the second Jerome’s eyes snapped to his own and declared that Hell was far too boring. 

It was interesting, talking to a man who had died, known he died, and took it all with utter nonchalance. Though, admittedly, scrubs didn’t quite suit Jerome’s look. They’d need to go shopping. 

“So,” Jerome finally started, taking a long sip from his soda straw, “what’s your plan, Doc?”

Quinn’s eyes drew up to Jerome’s face, following the line of the straw, and then looked away momentarily, cheeks pinking. “Uh. Honestly, no real plan? You’re sort of a tactical nuke to fuck up Gotham, pardon my French. My job is to keep you company and maybe point and fire you in the right directions.”

Jerome’s head tipped back and he hummed, lolling his head to the side and watching Quinn with slitted eyes. He smiled, large and lazy, and pointed his index finger at him, made it into a finger gun and ‘fired’ it with his thumb and a low click of his tongue. “Got’cha.” 

Quinn sucked in a breath, a smile blooming over his face. He was so doomed. Utterly and completely. He watched as Jerome took the final bite of his burger and wiped his hands on the wax paper, balling it up and tossed it toward the garbage can, shrugging when it bounced off and landed between the can and the wall. He pushed his chair back, standing smoothly.

“Well, if we’re gonna have a night on the town, I’m going to need something to wear.”

 

* * *

It was surprisingly easy to keep pace with Jerome. Maybe that was because he didn’t mind his company, though. Quinn didn’t really care much either way. A nurse Dr. Jace had flagged down earlier had returned to the facility with bags full of clothes for Jerome. Now Quinn was being subjected to an impromptu fashion show he didn’t mind one single bit. 

Jerome stepped into a pair of well made dark jeans and did them up, pairing them with a belt and a dark, royal purple silk shirt, which was currently unbuttoned on his chest. He buttoned the cuffs of the shirt and then paused, a grin twisting over his mouth as he looked toward Quinn. 

“You’ve seen mine, hot stuff. Tit for tat.”

Quinn blinked and then gaped at the words. “Why? I’m already dressed!” 

Jerome laughed, shaking his head slightly. “You’ve seen me in all kinds of _compromising_ positions. Only fair I get some of the same, besides, we can’t be going out and having fun with you looking like that. Sure it’s not a bad look, very unassuming, but blood on white collar shirts is a pain in the ass.”

Clucking his tongue, Quinn grabbed the hem of his sweater vest and pulled it up, dropping it beside himself and stood up, undoing the knot to his tie and the buttons to his shirt. He swallowed thickly, trying not to focus on Jerome’s eyes locked on him, burning into him like lasers. He shrugged off his shirt and looked around at the clothes, trying to see what would fit him. He was shorter, but broader than Jerome was. His eyes fell across a henley style hoodie in red, blood on red wasn’t so bad. He bent down to grab it and then started at the feeling of warm hands on his shoulder, dropping the shirt in his fingers. 

“Hyenas, huh.”

Oh, his tattoo. “Oh, yeah. You know, from the Lion King?”

He felt one of Jerome’s fingers trace along the lines of his tattoo and he shivered. Goosebumps broke out along the lines of his arms and he straightened up again, looking up into Jerome’s eyes, flicking his tongue along his lower lip. 

Jerome’s eyes roamed over his face and a hand came up to fist into his hair, tight and painful and a hot mouth pressed against his own. A muffled noise escaped him, followed by a second one when Jerome bit his lower lip. When he drew back, Quinn stared at him, slightly breathless, heart pounding. 

“You, this, is too good to be true. You’re the right hint of crazy; the right edge of needy. I’m going to break you. I hope you’re alright with that.”

Quinn sucked on his lower lip, relishing in the throb of pain that it came with. He nodded his head and tugged on the hoodie. “I’m more than alright with that, Mr. J.” 

Jerome tugged on the back of his head, sending pain searing across his scalp. “Come on, who does a guy have to kill to get a weapon around here?”

Quinn grinned and pressed into Jerome’s space, enjoying the way Jerome’s hand fell to rest against his shoulder, hooked around his neck in a possessive kind of hold. “Lucky for you, I’m just the guy. What are you in the mood for?”

“Something big. Loud. I want a messy boom.”

Quinn bit at the edge of Jerome’s chin, tasting the skin and sweat there. “I think I can arrange that.”


End file.
